Winter Reveries: Music of Winter

In Winter Reveries: Music of Winter, Marc Shulgold returns with an accessible and entertaining program that explores how composers and songwriters have captured winter’s many moods — from harsh cold and lonely nights to holiday cheer, fireside warmth, and the thrill of a sleigh ride. Through guided listening, composer stories, historical context, performance clips, and vivid imagery, guests will experience winter as both a season of hardship and a source of extraordinary musical imagination.

The program includes music from the Baroque era featuring choruses of singers who are, quite literally, shivering. In wintry opera scenes by French composer Jean-Baptiste Lully, who served in the court of Louis XIV, and English composer Henry Purcell, frozen souls somehow manage to sing through the cold. Fun to hear, difficult to perform.

Not every musical winter is miserable. Antonio Vivaldi’s “Winter,” from The Four Seasons, gives us ice skaters, biting cold, and the welcome comfort of warming beside a fire. Canadian folksinger Gordon Lightfoot offers a more solitary winter scene, alone in a cabin and missing someone beloved. Franz Schubert’s Winter Journey follows a heartbroken traveler wandering through snow after being rejected in love, eventually finding the courage to continue.

Russian composers, no strangers to long winters, add their own seasonal color. Tchaikovsky’s First Symphony, Winter Dreams, opens with a chilly, atmospheric mood, while his “Troika” carries listeners along in a three-horse sled. Alexander Glazunov brings winter to the ballet stage with music that can sparkle with surprising warmth and celebration.

And for pure seasonal delight, Leopold Mozart’s Musical Sleigh Ride offers jingling bells, festive energy, and even the snap of a driver’s whip.

Join us for a lively, thoughtful, and visually rich musical journey through winter — a season of frost, memory, endurance, beauty, and unexpected joy.

We are grateful to Richard and Christie Frenchie, our Membership Program presenting sponsors, and their generous nature-related philanthropy in Geauga County!

About the Speaker: A native of Los Angeles, Marc Shulgold was a music journalist at the Los Angeles Times, and for the Rocky Mountain News. He taught music history at the University of Denver's adult enrichment program for over 20 years and is a contributor to Opera Magazine among other publications. Marc is a program annotator for University of Colorado concerts and a longtime speaker at the Vail summertime music festival.

Ticket price for the Music & Nature series is $10 - proceeds benefit conservation, park enhancement, and nature education in Geauga County through the Foundation for Geauga Parks.

This series is included in the Foundation for Geauga Parks Membership Program:

-Friend level receives 20% off.

-Member level participants may attend free.

-Member Plus level participants receive one free ticket AND a free ticket for a friend attending with you.

Make sure you're logged into the website and when you enter your information and select your tickets, the membership option you chose will be applied.

If the event is canceled or postponed, registered attendees will be notified promptly and we will make every effort to reschedule. Unless otherwise noted, registrations and ticket purchases are nonrefundable.